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The lights were on, so I looked in the window. I saw Uncle Sam in his torn underwear, swilling cheap beer and scarfing a bag of chips. The walls were bare, the furniture tattered, Lady Liberty scrubbed the floor. The 500 foot TV screamed lies and news, but wait, aren’t they both the same? Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty went to bed that night while the Orange Haired Man sat […]

No Heroes Here Our paths cross every morning. I am leaving for work. She returns. At first she wore her hair tightly coiled, and sported purple overalls. Now she knows better. I imagine her behind half-closed curtains studying our clothes, our hair, our habits, when it’s safe to go out, when to stay in. I never see her in the neighborhood. She must be smart. She is my size, only […]

Abuelo I watch them put you into a hole in the wall next to your brother, Raphael. Two men who look like us mix plaster in a bucket and seal you inside. It is sunny on Rose Hill where there are no roses. I see my father’s face— He prays. A man whom I do not know speaks loudly. He celebrates you. His words echo off the mausoleum floor and […]

The audiotape crackles, brittle 60 years after dad lugged his reel-to-reel to the gray Florida farmhouse. He wanted to capture his immigrant parents – the scowler in her flower sack housedress, her sun-baked farmer in his cotton tee – and hear their stories again. How they climbed aboard at 19, lovers in steerage, rocked across the ocean to Ellis Island penniless and unconnected. How they picked their way through Southern […]